What’s at stake? Violence is resourcelessness. It relies on
narrowing, limiting resources to enclose and constrict people; i.e., inflicting
torture, defining people as enemies. But
nonviolence in this broad context is resourcefulness, for it commands countless resources deriving from compassion
for universal humanity, respect for common creativity, and the desire to expand
one’s own self and the being of others. And
nonviolence resists labeling people as enemies, the desire to shrivel up
individuals into the simple singleness of being necessary to killing them. Refusing to see or be an enemy is in contrast
one of the most resourceful of
behaviors, opening up others and oneself to the actual boundlessness of experience. Ursula Franklin, Foreword to Maxine
Kaufman-Lacusta, Refusing to Be Enemies:
Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation. HOW FAR SHOULD THIS ATTITUDE BE PURSUED?

CHRISTIANITY
Gandhi was quoted as saying: “The only
people on earth who do not seeChristand his teachings asnonviolentareChristians.”

Nancy
Small, Seizing the Nonviolent Moments:
Reflections on the Spirituality of Nonviolence Through the Lens of Scripture. Wipf and Stock, 2014. Rev. in The
Servant Song (Agape Community), Spring 2015, from Pax Christi’s web
site. Particularly valuable for
presenting “the biblical legacy of nonviolent women.”

MICHAEL NAGLER,
NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE

The
Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action

This
practical handbook is a brief guide to the core principles and strategies at
the heart of nonviolent
resistance [or satyagraha]. Michael Nagler distills the guiding
principles of nonviolence into a straightforward, practical, and short handbook
that will help anyone in a nonviolent movement work more safely and effectively
towards achieving social change. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, March 2014.

For
those seeking to apply the softer approach, a useful technique is called “nonviolent
communication.” Pioneered by the psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, NVC avoids
rhetorical violence and seeks to de-escalate conflict. Ike Lasater and John
Kinyon, associates of Rosenberg, have written Choosing Peace: New Ways to
Communicate to Reduce Stress, Create Connection, and Resolve Conflict
as a manual to help readers put these techniques into practice.

When
communicating in the NVC style, the first step is to describe a situation
objectively without any judgments or “spin.” The second is to say how this
makes you feel. The third element is to dig a little deeper and explain what
values or needs make you feel this way. This third step can be particularly
challenging. The final and optional step is to make a request of the person
with whom you’re communicating.

Choosing
Peace builds on Marshall Rosenberg’s 2003 book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg himself was
a student of humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers. Lasater, trained as a lawyer,
acknowledges Zen influences in his own philosophy. The NVC approach is
compatible with the Buddhist concept of skillful speech in general, but adds
specific implementation details. Kinyon, trained as a clinical psychologist,
suggests in a personal epilogue that these techniques have a deeper, spiritual
“energy” behind them. However, none of the techniques presented use any form of
spiritual language. Secular humanists can apply them without modification.

Among
the authors’ motivations for the series, they’ve found that “the basic NVC
model was not sufficient in stressful situations, when the fight-or-flight
reaction was triggered.” They go into a bit of this in the introductory
volume—for instance, suggesting that couples who have agreed to use NVC adopt
an “awareness password” to remind their partner to return to the practice when
they appear to have departed from it. However, a more detailed exposition of
their enhanced NVC process appears to be reserved for future volumes in the
series. If they deliver on these promises, the series will be a valuable
addition to the literature on compassionate communication.

Published
in the January / February 2015 Humanist

Rick
Heller leads secular meditations at the Harvard Humanist Community and has
attended workshops in nonviolent communication. He can be reached via Twitter
at @seeingtheroses.

My name is Sarah Cassel
and I am a new student of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). I recently completed
the introductory course on NVC, and from that experience became motivated to
continue learning about and experimenting with the many applications of NVC in
my life and in our society generally.

In that vein, I wanted to let you know about a one-year, international,
low-cost/no-cost online NVC course coming up this month that I will
be participating in. It’s a great opportunity to continue one’s development of
NVC or to get an introduction to the practice, so it may be something you and
your community would want to explore.

I've included an open letter (below) from the author of the course, Thom Bond,
that can be posted to your group. Also, if you want to check it out a bit, you
can go tocompassioncourse.orgto see a video about the
course, an interactive map of course participants, and two sample weekly
messages.

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Sarah [This is available
still today, 12-28-16. –Dick]

100
years before September 11, 2001, on September 11, 1906, M.K. Gandhi officially
launched the world's first Satyagraha, or strategic, nonviolent resistance
campaign. Noted peace scholar Michael Nagler tells the story of the birth of
Satyagraha (literally "clinging to truth") in South Africa. This book
is also available for Kindle and for other eBooks on Smashwords! --D

[Some of this newsletter appeared in an OMNI Israel/Palestine
newsletter. –Dick]

Despair is not an option. We believe that we have no alternative
but to continue the struggle for a just resolution of the conflict. And as
neighbors whose fates are intertwined--someone once called us Siamese twins--we
are committed to continuing to work together, for the sake of future generations
of both peoples.
-Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker, Palestine-Israel Journal

--> Stay in touch!
- Join our mailing list: http://ajmuste.org/mailing_list.html
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Muste Notes in the mail and prefer to read them online? Let us know.

For
the past 100 days, activists have been engaging in nonviolent direct action in
Ferguson, Missouri and are calling for demonstrations of solidarity across the
country. It is in this context that WRL continues its legacy of training
nonviolent action.

This
past weekend over two dozen organizers from across the Northeast gathered at
the Voluntown Peace Trust in Connecticut for the first in a series of a
"Training 4 Trainers" we are planning. "WRL has a long history of providing resources in nonviolence
training. This past weekend strengthened our commitment by offering this unique
Training 4 Trainers to long-standing and emerging movements," Joanne
Sheehan, WRL New England Staff and co-editor of the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns.

(Click
on the below images for video interviews with participants Nelia Sergeant and
Nylah Greaves.)

Activists
and organizers from Nukewatch, Hearing Youth Voices, AF3IRM, Students for
Justice in Palestine, the YaYa Network, Stop the F35, LGBTQ Youth Kickback and
ICE-FREE NYC were among those present. Participants highlighted that they
gained a deep knowledge of the history and purpose of nonviolent action,
received time-tested tools for developing strategic campaigns, and learned how
to be stronger facilitators by practicing communication, participation, and
reflection skills."I learned that
you can really fight the powers-that-be with nonviolent action and coordinate
how effective we can be through training," Julian Larson, LGBTQ*
Youth Kickback

Now is the time
for nonviolent training across the country and across movements. With the
legacy of movement leaders to strengthen us, WRL will push forward in our
commitment to building intergenerational leadership for nonviolent social
change. Stay posted for more Trainings 4 Trainers, as we continue to expand a
network of trainers!

warpreventioninitiative.org/?portfolio=tom-h-hastingsTom
H. Hastings is
founder and Director of PeaceVoice, a program of the Oregon ... and
written books about nonviolent action
campaigns for almost 40 years.

From
the desk of Rivera Sun comes a novel about the refusal of the human heart to
submit to destructive authority.

“In
a time that looms around the corner of today, in a place on the edge of our
nation.”

Under
a gathering storm of tyranny, Zadie Byrd Gray whirls into the life of Charlie
Rider and asks him to become the voice of the Dandelion Insurrection. With the
rallying cry of life, liberty, and love, Zadie and Charlie fly across America
leaving a wake of revolution in their path. Passion erupts. Danger abounds. The
lives of millions hang by a thin thread of courage, but in the midst of the
madness, the golden soul of humanity blossoms . . . and miracles start to
unfold!

Read
more excerpts from The Dandelion
Insurrection . . .

“The Dandelion Insurrection is as small
as baking bread in your oven, and as large as bringing down dictators.”

The
Dandelion Insurrection is the story
of nonviolent revolution in the United States. This book offers through its
story many tools and strategies developed by countless leaders throughout
history, including Gandhi, Dr. King, Cesar Chavez, and Professor Gene Sharp.
From marches to cazerolazo pot-and-pan protests to strikes to Victory Gardens
for the People; the Dandelion Insurrection shares ideas that have changed the
world.
(You can see a sneak peak of the book in our gallery!)

“Be
like the dandelions, spring up in intolerable soils, dare to stand up against
violence, and blossom into love!”

See: Peace
Heroes doc

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Here's a really good story about the work they
do that peace leaders should hear

(From left to right) Maimouna Alammar, their daughter Emar
Nassar, and Osama Nassar are a family dedicated to Syrian non-violence
activism. Because of their dedication, the two have been subject to
imprisonment and torture.

In Syria death, torture, destruction, devastation and militarism
are what the media presents to us. A revolution that began in 2011 as a
peaceful, grass roots, nonviolent protest of the undeniably oppressive Assad
regime evolved into something that many Americans such as this writer simply
declare as beyond understanding.

April 8 at noon: Why Civil Resistance Works: Nonviolent Struggle
in the Past and Future
Clinton School for Public Service, Sturgis Hall - More info on Facebook

She
will also be speaking at high schools in the area and at Hendrix
College.
Erica Chenoweth, PhD, associate professor at the Korbel School of
International Studies at the University of Denver, is one of the
world’s leading authorities on non-violence and its effectiveness in
conflict situations. She is the co-author of Why Civil Resistance
Works – The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
(2011, Columbia University Press), which was awarded the 2012 Woodrow
Wilson Foundation prize as the top book on government, politics or
international affairs.

She was ranked among the Top 100
Global Thinkers in 2013 by Foreign Policy magazine for “proving Gandhi
right.” Also, in 2013, she was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for
“Ideas improving the world order.” Other recipients of this
prize have included Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the USSR.
In her book (co-authored with Maria Stephen), Dr. Chenoweth combines
extensive statistical analysis with major case studies (i.e. Iran,
Palestine, the Philippines) detailing the factors that allow nonviolent
resistance campaigns to succeed, though sometimes they
fail. Under what conditions do they fail or succeed?
She examined the conflicts of 323 popular movements over a 106-year
period (1900-2006) and was able to collect serious data on 259 of
those. She found, for instance, that only one in four nonviolent
campaigns since 1900 has failed, while only one in four violent
campaigns has succeeded. Further, her evidentiary work concludes
that successful nonviolent resistance brings about more durable and
internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into
civil war.

Dr. Chenoweth concludes her book with the following appeal: “The
historical record clearly shows that civil resistance is an enduring
force for change in the international system. It behooves
scholars, policy makers, resistance leaders, and the media to increase
their understanding of how, when, and why nonviolent campaigns achieve
goals that have eluded armed fighters for decades.”

Major sponsors to-date of Dr. Chenoweth’s visit are the Arkansas
Coalition for Peace & Justice (ACPJ), the UALR Middle Eastern
Studies Program, the Clinton School of Public Service, the Chamberlin
Family Foundation, and Arkansas WAND (Women’s Actions for New
Directions).

For additional information, contact ACPJ at joticof@aol.comor
at (501)663-1439 or (501)952-8181.

What
does it take to bring about peace? In TED Talks: War and Peace join host
Baratunde Thurston to meet those who have experienced every aspect of war —
fighters, journalists, psychologists, doctors and peacemakers — for a look at
the impact of war and combat in our world. Learn how it affects every one of us
in these extraordinary, passionate talks and performances from. . . . actor and
veteran Samantha Nutt examining the
proliferation and supply of small arms used to intimidate civilians in war-torn
countries, Jamila
Raqib, a peace activist and Executive Director of the Albert Einstein
Institution who works on nonviolent solutions to some of the largest conflicts
of the world. . . .